The article at the bottom of this post was published by The Wall Street Journal on January 19, 2025. It was written by Jeanne Whalen. The premise here is that the Biden Administration did a good deed by spending money via business related government programs.
We’ll start with our own rebuttal written by Revere Blog contributor Aaliyah Henry.
I have to say, it is fascinating to see this author realize that the Left must move back to its former bulwark of “The Government Is Here to Tax and Spend on Your Behalf”. I say the Left’s former bulwark because the Left went so far left that it walked right off the reservation and found itself in no man’s land (excuse me, no person’s land) after being repudiated by the American electorate in the last political cycle.
For point of reference (and to add a bit of humor), you can consider the author of this article, Jeanne Whalen, a kind of sleeper agent of the left in that she came to The Wall Street Journal from The Washington Post. Her leftist credentials are well in order as she is self-proclaimed to be a “proud Washington Post alumna”, with tours of duty in strongholds such as New York City, Washington DC, and even Russia.
Expect to see significant retreats to the familiar territory of tax and spend so we can save you from yourself. We the ruling class, we who have never owned businesses nor ever had to be held accountable for each dollar we spend, we really must take your money so we can distribute it as it should be distributed.
It is not the purview of this comment to document how incredibly inefficient “tax and spend” is in the real world. It is the point of this comment to highlight that the Left’s propaganda machine is re-tooling. I commend this particular piece of work as being highly effective in trying to convince people that tax and spend is a great idea.
Next, we’ll highlight the most liked comment from the message section for the article. This paragraph was written by Michael Carlin
Unfortunately, while this all sounds good like seeding growth, we know from history that Government is not supposed to be a venture capitalist, lender or a hedge fund. The inflation created by these monster spending bills under Biden is crushing a large segment of the population who lives paycheck to paycheck. Who decides who gets the freebies? It should not be government workers who know nothing about the viability of investments.
Below is the article itself from the WSJ
Biden Leaves With an Uncertain Economic Legacy. Not So in This Indiana Town.
By Jeanne Whalen Jan. 19, 2025 9:00 pm ET
The president leaves the stage Monday with dismal approval ratings and an uncertain legacy. But green shoots from his big initiatives are starting to pop—many in red states. Things have been looking up lately in Terre Haute, Ind., after recent decades had brought hard times.
- President Biden leaves office this week with a largely unpopular economic record. But Biden-backed legislation is fueling a surge in infrastructure investments.
- The investments are expected to have a lasting impact on Terre Haute, Ind., and other communities across the country.
- Republicans have blasted elements of the spending. But the American Rescue Plan Act and the Inflation Reduction Act have provided billions in funding for projects that are creating jobs.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind.—The mayor of this Rust Belt city is tracking so many infrastructure investments that he is running out of room on his whiteboard. There are new parks, sidewalks and housing units under construction. A giant factory is rising south of town and another is on the way.
The growth is some of the best this region has experienced in decades, much of it sparked by federal funding from President Biden-backed legislation.
The Covid stimulus funding in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) gave Terre Haute about $34 million to plow into city improvements—a once-in-a-generation windfall for a community of 60,000 people. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is providing more than $2 billion in loans and tax credits to two planned factories that will create more than 800 jobs.
The funding “has done wonders for communities like Terre Haute,” said Mayor Brandon Sakbun, a 28-year-old Democrat and former Army Ranger who leads a sometimes blue-leaning city in a county and state that voted for Donald Trump. “A lot of Hoosiers and a lot of individuals might not realize just the true impact that several pieces of legislation have had.”
Mayor Brandon Sakbun says Terre Haute has benefited from federal funding from Biden-backed legislation.
Biden leaves office Monday with a largely unpopular economic record. Sharp inflation struck U.S. consumers like a lightning bolt soon after his election, causing swift spikes in grocery, housing and auto prices that helped force Biden out of the election. His approval rating has tanked to a dismal 36%.
The green shoots emerging in Terre Haute are another part of Biden’s legacy that will continue unfolding long after he is gone.
The hundreds of billions of dollars that his legislative initiatives directed to infrastructure, manufacturing, green-energy projects and urban development are just now starting to take shape nationwide. The administration says the funding is supporting more than 74,000 infrastructure projects, factories and clean-energy ventures, with a big share going to red states and regions hard-hit by offshoring and globalization.
“It will likely be beneficial to many places across the country looking back in a few years,” said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who is tracking the investment.
Some Republicans have blasted elements of the spending, saying that it unnecessarily pulls money from taxpayers at a time of soaring national deficits. Critics also say the funds sometimes go to corporations that might have been inclined to invest anyway. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) declined to support one law subsidizing computer-chip factories, calling it corporate welfare.
Terre Haute got about $34 million for city improvements from Covid stimulus funding. It also got $2 billion in loans and tax credits for two planned factories.
Biden backed federal funding under four separate pieces of legislation: the Chips and Science Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, ARPA and the IRA. Those programs were designed to bolster the nation’s roads, bridges and railroads and to help construct high-tech factories and energy infrastructure crucial to a modern economy. ARPA also directed $360 billion of stimulus funds to state and local governments during the pandemic, which many are spending on infrastructure, small-business development and other needs.
Many presidents don’t get quick credit for economic accomplishments that take a while to materialize. Some critics said the administration undermined its sales pitch by taking too long to disburse the money and failing to slap Biden’s name on more construction signs.
Still, an array of federal funding is starting to bear fruit in many parts of the country.
Just one small slice of the IRA—expanded funding for a tax credit known as 48C—is helping to build dozens of new factories, including a planned battery-metal refinery in Ohio and a facility to recycle solar panels in Georgia. The administration’s award gusher continued last week with a $1.4 billion investment in computer-chip facilities in Arizona, Georgia and California.
If a $1.6 billion loan guarantee gets final approval, it would create 500 construction jobs and about 150 permanent jobs in a new factory on this site.
“It will take time to feel the full impact of all we’ve done together. But the seeds are planted,” Biden said in a speech last week.
Perched on the banks of the Wabash River in western Indiana, Terre Haute rose as a manufacturing hub in the late 19th century, cranking out everything from iron to Clabber Girl baking powder. Author Theodore Dreiser was born in town, and Larry Bird played for Indiana State University here in the 1970s. Recent decades brought hard times, including the same plant closures and population decline that have plagued many manufacturing communities. Terre Haute’s median household income of $42,000 is well below Indiana’s of $70,000.
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But lately, things have been looking up. Driving through town on a recent afternoon, Mayor Sakbun showed off several clusters of housing construction spurred by ARPA funds that are paying for sewer, water and electricity lines. The funding helped developers start or finish construction of 450 homes last year, compared with 120 or so in years past, a pace the city hopes to maintain. Some investors are also using the funds to rehab properties that have stood vacant for decades.
New ARPA-funded pedestrian bridges are planned to connect hotels to a small convention center. Indiana State University is using ARPA money to enlarge a child-care facility. Another local college, St. Mary-of-the-Woods, received funds to expand its equine-studies program, including renovating an arena for horse shows to attract tourism.
This housing construction is among several clusters in Terre Haute spurred by American Rescue Plan Act funding.
Charlie’s Pub & Grub, a decades-old institution, is one of two dozen small businesses to receive ARPA-funded grants from the city and United Way. Owners Nikki and Cheyne O’Laughlin plan to use the $70,000 to install a new roof and awning on the restaurant. “Charlie’s is in a lower-income neighborhood off the beaten path, just on a side street, so it was very exciting for us to get something,” Nikki O’Laughlin said after wrapping up the lunch shift. Without the grant, the O’Laughlins would have replaced the leaking roof in stages or maybe taken out a bank loan, they said.
Much larger projects are rising on the outskirts of town. Entek, an Oregon-based company that makes parts for lithium-ion batteries, is building a $1.8 billion factory supported by a $1.2 billion loan from an Energy Department program that got new funding from the IRA. The investment is one of the largest the area has ever received, and the planned 650 jobs will make the plant one of the biggest employers in town.
Kim Medford, president of Entek’s manufacturing division, called the low-cost loan “crucial” to the project, saying it helps make the venture more competitive with overseas rivals. “We would have had to come up with a different financing strategy for sure without the loan,” Medford said.
Cheyne, left, and Nikki O’Laughlin received a federally funded grant for one of the two local restaurants they own.
A big aim of the IRA was to create new jobs in coal communities as the country transitions to cleaner sources of energy. Terre Haute sits above a historic coal-mining region that has suffered amid declining demand.
Just north of town, Wabash Valley Resources is awaiting a $1.6 billion IRA-funded loan guarantee to turn the site of a former coal-fired power plant into a factory to make ammonia for fertilizer. Traditional ammonia production emits harmful greenhouse gases, but the Terre Haute project aims to trap its CO2 emissions and bury them underground, a cleaner approach known as carbon sequestration that the Biden administration has been eager to support.
The project will create 500 construction jobs and about 150 permanent jobs with an average base salary of about $100,000 a year, the company said.
Having dinner at the Terminal Public House restaurant downtown, also owned by the O’Laughlins, Jack Deckard said he was aware that the new factories are receiving federal funding but wasn’t certain from which legislation. The 41-year-old, who works for a company that lends construction equipment, said he is hopeful that the projects will help keep young college graduates from leaving town.
“If all your talented and educated people leave,” he said, “what’s that leave you with?”